


Worth the Price

by wowbright



Series: Glee Reaction Fic to s06e07 "Transitioning" [7]
Category: Glee
Genre: Episode Related, Episode: s06e07 Transitioning, M/M, Makeup, Process Fic, Reunions, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-20
Updated: 2015-02-20
Packaged: 2018-03-13 23:08:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3399686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wowbright/pseuds/wowbright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt and Blaine talk, which is what they should have been doing all along. Reaction fic to Glee 6.07 “Transitioning.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worth the Price

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pene](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pene/gifts).



> Title from the episode-featured song "I Know We're I've Been." Thanks to likearumchocolatesouffle  and nachochang for instant betaing. Written because duckfeetinsauce and mshoneysucklepink wanted a fic where Kurt and Blaine make up and talk about their problems, and because damnpene likes certain types of endings. There’s a reference to the “box scene” (missing scene from S3), which can be viewed [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5HEYZhBbjY); Yossi & Jagger is a really depressing gay Israeli film. This fic is also on [tumblr](http://wowbright.tumblr.com/post/111583787005/fic-worth-the-price-klaine).

Other than that weird run-in at the choir room when Blaine came looking for Rachel, it’s been radio silence from Blaine for more than a week.

And then Kurt gets this message:

> **Blaine:** Could you come over today? I’m at my parents’ house.

Kurt is home alone on a Saturday afternoon, going through playlists that the kids from New Directions shared with him on Spotify, trying to find a winner among all the dreck. He pauses Marilyn Manson’s “Running to the Edge of the World” and stares at the phone until he stops seeing it. Instead, what he sees is Blaine walking away from him at Rachel’s party, his royal blue blazer and shiny black hair fading into the dark.

> **Blaine:** Or I could come to your place.

Kurt feels it almost more clearly than he did that night: the unexpected press of Blaine’s lips against his, the odd recoil in Kurt’s muscles, the words _why_ and _not like this_ pounding in his brain.

> **Blaine:** Or the Lima Bean?

But moments before that, everything had been so ideal – swapping memories, looking at each other fondly, trying to wrangle their teenage love into a friendship that might, hopefully, last.

> **Blaine:** I made cookies. You could help me eat them.

An entirely different memory: standing in the McKinley hallway with a gum-wrapper ring in his hand, and Blaine so close and so happy, promising to bake cookies for him twice a year and to always love him.

After everything, Blaine’s still holding onto his promises, isn’t he?

Or maybe Kurt’s reading too much into it. Maybe Blaine’s just having a rough patch with Karofsky and grabbing onto nostalgia to distract him. Heaven knows Blaine’s looked for distraction outside his relationships before.

> **Kurt:** Are you sure that’s a good idea?

Kurt doesn’t even have time to put the phone down before it buzzes with a response.

> **Blaine:** Absolutely.

Against his better judgment, Kurt finds himself texting “I’ll be there in 20,” and hitting _send._

* * *

The door isn’t even open halfway before Kurt starts talking. “We’re not making out,” he says. “I have no idea what’s going on in that head of yours, but I’m not your bit on the side.”

Blaine looks like someone just stabbed him. It’s the same look he had after kissing Kurt outside of Rachel’s, the same one he had when they pulled apart and the elevator doors opened. For a moment, Kurt expects Blaine to run away this time, too.

But Blaine just opens the door more widely. “That’s not why I wanted to see you.” He clutches his hands together in front of his hips, his fingertips pointed toward the ground. “Or, it is, but not that way. I just – I need to apologize for what I did at Rachel’s party, Kurt. And other things. I know I’ve been weird lately. It’s not fair to you.”

“Okay.” Kurt exhales the word. He nods. “Okay.”

Inside, the air floats with vanilla and warm, autumn spices. “It smells good,” Kurt says, taking off his jacket. “Whatever you made.”

“Oatmeal chocolate chip with cardamom. There’s a batch that’s already done, but I waited to put in the second one. I know how much you like them when they’re still warm.”

 _Are you sure you’re not trying to seduce me?_ Kurt thinks, but keeps it to himself. Instead, he opens the coat closet and says, “How’s Karofsky?”

“We, um … we broke up.”

Kurt misses the hanger completely. His jacket falls to the floor. He doesn’t bother to pick it up. “When did that happen?”

“A week ago,” Blaine shrugs. “Not as soon as it should have.”

It would be rude to say, _Damn right,_ so Kurt just stares at Blaine with his mouth agape.

And then, “I should have ended it as soon as you came back to Lima and I realized I was still in love with you. That I will _always_ be in love with you.”

Kurt presses his fingers to his lips, traces the memory of Blaine’s kiss. “It meant something.”

“It meant _everything_ , Kurt.”

Kurt grabs the closet door frame and holds fast. He’s not sure if he needs it to keep him from collapsing in shock, or to keep from launching himself at Blaine and pinning him to the wall with kisses. Kurt has the odd sensation that the room is spinning, but the world is standing still.

Blaine rubs the back of his neck. “How’s Walter?”

The question is cold water. Kurt blinks. “Um … I don’t know? I haven’t talked to him in a few days.”

“Oh?” Blaine’s eyebrows flatten in concern. “Did something happen? Did I – I didn’t mess things up between you, did I?”

Kurt shakes his head. “There’s not anything to mess up. He’s fun to hang out with. But we’re not serious.” He looks away from Blaine and turns to pick up his jacket. “Or exclusive.”

“Oh.”

Kurt hangs his jacket successfully this time. “Anyway,” he says, turning to face Blaine. “My turn for a confession.”

Blaine nods and scratches his elbow. “Kitchen?”

“Is that the best place?” Kurt says, looking up the stairs. “Your parents –”

“They’re not home. Won’t be home until tonight.”

“Okay.” Kurt nods. “Kitchen. Let’s talk.”

* * *

They sit in silence for a few minutes, just getting used to being near each other again without false boundaries hemming them in. They eat from the first batch. The cookies are sweet and perfumy from the cardamom; the bitterness of the chocolate creates a perfect balance, keeping them from becoming cloying. Kurt eats three of them before pushing the plate away and saying, “It meant something to me, too. In the elevator. It’s why I held out for so long. I knew it would mean something to me, but I wasn’t sure how you felt and … I didn’t want my heart broken again. Which I know is unfair. I’m the one who broke up with you. I don’t really have a right to a broken heart, do I?”

Blaine reaches for Kurt’s hand. Hesitates.

Kurt turns his hand toward Blaine’s. He slides their palms together. Their fingers interlock.

Blaine’s shoulders go slack with relief. “I know I said I’d never forgive you, Kurt. But somewhere along the line I did, without even noticing.” Blaine looks down at their hands, his lowered lashes coal-black smiles over his eyes. “I always thought you were the smart one in the relationship –”

Kurt squeezes Blaine’s hand. “Well, I _did_ write my first full-length musical with score at the age of 15.”

Blaine chuckles warmly, ducks his head with a blush. “I guess that’s why I expected brilliance from you at all times.” Blaine looks out the window, and Kurt’s gaze follows. There are two squirrels on the tree outside it, chasing each other up and down the trunk. They watch until the squirrels disappear into the canopy. Blaine clears his throat. “But you only know as much as I do about living with someone, don’t you? You have exactly as much experience as I do at being in love.”

Kurt’s throat feels tight. “I have no idea what I’m doing most of the time. And sometimes I really fuck things up.”

Blaine reaches out with his free hand to stroke the hair over Kurt’s ear. “We both messed up. We knew something was wrong and we didn’t know how to talk about it.”

“What do you think was wrong?” Kurt says. “I know I have my ideas, but I want to hear yours.”

“For me, it was expecting that being in love with you should make me completely happy. That I should stop having worries, that I shouldn’t have bad days where everything looks grey and I don’t want to get out of bed, unless it’s to lie on the couch and watch _Yossi & Jagger_ and eat cronuts until I feel sick.”

“I get so sad when you’re like that. I mean, I like cronuts, but not when they mean you’re feeling bad about yourself.”

“I know. And I hated that. Because I also felt like I was supposed to be making _you_ happy all the time, and I wasn’t, and that was so frustrating. And instead of talking about it I just bottled it up inside and exploded at you over the littlest things when it wasn’t even you I was angry with in the first place. It was me.”

“You must have been angry with me at least some of the time.”

“Well, the toothpaste on the towel really did gross me out. But I could have just put out an extra towel.”

Kurt smiles. “What can I say? I was raised by wolves. I’ve been trying to transcend my upbringing, but it’s a slow process.”

Blaine scoots his chair around the table so that it’s next to Kurt’s. He leans his head against Kurt’s shoulder. “Your dad’s not a wolf.”

“You wouldn’t know that from his table manners,” Kurt says affectionately. “Or mine. I still have to think carefully about which fork to use in which order at a fancy restaurant. And you’ve seen me chew. I’m terrible about not talking with my mouth full.”

“That’s true.” Blaine smiles against Kurt’s shoulder. “But I usually find that adorable.”

“You have weird taste in men.”

“I think it’s perfect.”

“Perfectly imperfect?” Kurt teases.

“If you say so.”

Kurt kisses the top of Blaine’s hair. It smells like raspberries and tastes like ethanol. Still, Kurt wouldn’t trade the privilege of kissing it for anything in the world. “I want to work on it, though. I want to work on learning to live with you.”

Blaine looks up. “Me, too.”

“I wish I was better at sharing space with other people. I don’t know if it’s from living in a big house with just my dad for all those years, or if it’s just the way I’m hard-wired, but I really do need space of my own. And I need to be alone more often than I know is comfortable for you.”

“Maybe if I stop looking to you to make me happy, it won’t be so hard to _let_ you have time alone,” Blaine says. “And maybe we can look for a place where you have your own – an office, or maybe we could each have our own bedroom –”

“As long as we could sleep over in each other’s rooms as much as we want.”

Blaine kisses Kurt’s cheek. “Of course. That goes without saying.”

“I miss falling asleep next to you.”

“I do, too.”

Kurt’s body moves before Kurt knows what it’s doing. One hand on the nape of Blaine’s neck, the other on his jaw. Blaine’s cranes up toward him, his face only a hair’s breadth away.

“Blaine,” Kurt whispers.

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Blaine’s eyes blink slowly, but stay focused on Kurt’s. “Kiss me?”

The kiss is so different from the last one, and the one before. It’s different from any kiss they’ve had in ages – there’s no struggle, no chase, and none of the simmering anxiety that fueled so many of their kisses over the past year. Nothing to bury or hide. It’s just them: two imperfect people who will never fit perfectly together, but love each other all the more because of it.

“Blaine,” Kurt says, barely pulling away from the kiss, his hand on Blaine’s cheek.

“Yes?” Blaine’s voice is fuzzy, like he hasn’t quite woken from a dream.

“I still want to marry you. Tomorrow, or next week, or in ten years – I don’t care. But it’s you I want to spend my life with. And I can’t promise that I’ll never get scared again, or stubborn and particular and hard to live with. But I can promise to talk to you more than I have been about the things that scare me, and about what I need. And I can promise to listen to you as well as I know how to, and to work on getting better at it.”

Blaine’s mouth falls open into a small, surprised _O_ , but no sound comes out. So intimate to see this boy, who can sing for strangers at the drop of a hat, go speechless.

“Blaine, I’ve loved you since the first day I met you, and I just keep loving you more and more. I hope you’ll let me love you for the rest of my life.”

Blaine nods. “Yes,” he says. “To all of it. Yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> I love getting comments. I have seen all aired episodes, but please note that I am spoiler-free for future ones. Please don't refer to previews or spoilers for future episodes in your comments. (I usually see them when they air in the U.S., so once an episode has aired, go wild!) Thanks!


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